Christian Marriage - A Living Portrait of Christ and the Church

I endeavored to make the case in my last post that Ephesians 5:21 is not teaching that there is to be mutual submission in marriage for the husband and the wife.   I will not review the details but direct your attention to that post and to the responses of disagreement and agreement that were offered and personally appreciated.  My hope is that there can be honest and gracious dialogue among Advent Christians on the issues presented in these articles.   

I want to continue and lay out what I believe Paul is teaching on the nature of a wife’s submission and the husband’s headship in Christian marriage.    Wives are called by Paul to submit to their own husbands as the church submits to Christ.   Paul addresses Christian wives in verse 22: Wives (submit) to your own husbands in the Lord. The word submit (ὑpotάsso) in the form of a present middle participle is found in verse 21 where we read: “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.”   While it is not found in the two major critical Greek New Testaments in verse 22,* it is definitely implied and that this is the meaning here becomes clear in verse 24: as the church submits to Christ likewise also wives to your husbands in everything.   The reason a wife is to submit  to her husband is that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.    So, the call Paul gives to wives is to submit to their own husbands and not to anyone else’s husband and this is to be done voluntarily as unto the Lord and not under any pressure from their husbands.   

Now, Christian husbands are charged to love their wives just as Christ loved the church.  In verse 25 we read: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.   Husbands are not commanded to make their wives submit to them.  Husbands have no business whatsoever, under any circumstances, to demand that their wives submit or to force them to do so.  Rather the text states that the way  Christ loves the church is the model for the husband’s love and treatment of his wife.   This is a call for the husband sacrificially  to love his wife and all forms of manipulation, neglect and abuse are scandalous sins that have no place in marriage.  

But what does it mean for a Christian husband to be the head of his wife?   The Greek word head(kephele) literally is that part of people’s and animals’ bodies that contains the brain.   According to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG)  it also is used figuratively to denote the superior rank of a father to his family or, as here, of a husband to his wife and of Christ in relation to the church.  It is also used of Christ as head of the universe (Eph. 1:22).+    The use of the word head, which describes some type of rank, indicates a form of hierarchy.   Any attempt to expunge this meaning from the text is simply unwarranted, in my estimation, regardless of how culturally unacceptable it is.  Yet the text also requires a great deal more nuance on this matter of the husband being the head.  Paul’s exhortation that the believing husband is to love his wife rather than dominate her shows that the Gospel is to shape how the husband is to be in relationship with his wife.   All notions that the wife’s submission to her husband is for his personal happiness, self-interest or to massage his ego do not stand under the weight of the text.  She is not to sacrifice for him but he is to sacrifice for her.   Headship and submission within a Christian marriage is fueled by Gospel grace and is a portrait of the covenant relation between Christ and the church.   So, all dominance, manipulative control, impatient, and bitter begrudging interaction on the husband’s part toward his wife must be put to death as works of the flesh.    The text does not give any believing husband this kind of sinful control to dominate his wife.  It could not be clearer and those men who use this text to that end (and sadly there have been and still are many) should come under church discipline.   

I am fairly convinced that the text teaches that the husband being the head means that he is to be the leader in the marriage covenant.  The husband is the leader of his wife.   This means that there must be some purpose or end for the marriage.   In the mini series Band of Brothers that chronicles the exploits of the 101st Airborne’s Easy Company from basic training in Toccoa, Georgia  through D-Day  to the end of the Second World War there is a scene that occurs toward the end of the Battle of the Bulge in which Easy Company  is assigned the task of taking the Belgium town of  Foy.  Lieutenant Dyke is to lead Easy in the attack but at a crucial moment freezes, he loses all sense of his training under an avalanche of uncertainty and hesitation, therefore risking the lives of the men in the company.  Lieutenant Speirs is urgently sent forward to replace Dyke and at risk of his life takes charge and leads the company forward in the attack and Easy Company succeeds in its mission of liberating Foy.   Leadership has a purpose other than stroking the ego of the leader.   A  leader must be concerned about others and the direction toward which they are to be led.  Both the leader and those who follow must have a mutual sense of  that mission and own it.  

So, what is the purpose of Christian marriage?   I see two connected purposes for marriage in this text.  First, the very fact that Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 (as Jesus does in Matt. 19:5 and Mark 10:7) indicates that one purpose is to fulfill God’s design for marriage.  The man initially takes the lead in leaving.  He is to leave his father and mother.  In doing this he moves from dependence upon his parents and leads his wife in establishing a new covenant union of marriage with her that marks the two as one flesh (Mal 2:14).  A union that is closer than that of parents and children.  A union that is to be between one man and one woman.    Yet, that union forms the basis for fulfilling the mandate God gives to the man and woman who were made in His image and likeness: to be fruitful by having children, to exercise stewardship over creation and therein to help humanity flourish (Genesis 1:26-28).   So marriage of a man and a woman creates a family and a family a household.   

The mandate given in Genesis 1:26-28 is expanded with the details in Genesis 2:15-25.  The Lord God took Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden (the temple sanctuary) to tend (work) it and to keep (guard) it.  Here are the first steps in exercising dominion or stewardship over creation.  He gave Adam permission to eat of every tree of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for, if he does, he will die.   Then the Lord God makes an assessment of Adam's condition of aloneness and pronounces the first and only “it-is-not-good” in all of the creation narrative.   “It is not good for man to be alone.”  Then the Lord God announces the solution:  “I will make him a helper fit for him.”  Before the Lord God created woman from man, He gave Adam the task of naming the animals which made it apparent that from the other creatures no suitable helper could be found for Adam.   Then the Lord God brought a deep sleep upon Adam and performed divine surgery and from Adam’s rib He made the woman and brought her to Adam.   As the Lord God brings the woman to the man, the first marriage occurs and when Adam sees his bride he sings her praise and hence names her.  

"This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; 

she shall be called Woman (Hebrew isha), 

because she was taken out of Man. (Hebrew ish)" (Gen. 2:23 ESV)

Man and woman were created in the image of God and share full ontological equality.  However, the fact that Eve was created from Adam and not Adam from Eve (1Cor. 11:6-9) and that the task to work and to guard the garden was given him prior to her creation indicates his prominence as the head of the woman and hence he is the leader in that task.   She was created to be his helper.  The word helper (‘ezer) is not a demeaning term.  It is used as an attribute of  the Lord God as the helper of his people (Psa. 10:14; 30:10; 54:5; 72:12; 118:7).  The woman as helper does what the man cannot do by himself.  The NET Bible’s notes read:  “‘In this context the word seems to express the idea of an ‘indispensable companion.’  The woman would supply what the man was lacking in the design of creation and logically it would follow that the man would supply what she was lacking, although that is not stated here.’”  Yet the initial directive given to Adam, for which the woman was created for him, as helper, indicates that she was made to help him in this task.  He is the one charged with working and guarding the garden-temple as its priest and the woman is to help him as he takes the lead.  She is the one who is suitable for this, for she matches and corresponds to him in every way.  In other words she compliments him and together they are to fulfill the mandate as vice regents of the Lord God.  

The word helper (‘ezer) does not suggest a subordinate role for the woman.  Nevertheless the woman is the helper of the man, who is to lead.    Yet to fulfill the design for marriage both are necessary and hence complementary.  This is the task God gave to Adam before Eve was created and the details of that task had to be communicated by him to her.   I would contend that it remains the case for every marriage and especially for every Christian marriage.    Eve being created from Adam’s side - his rib - truly indicates their full ontological equality but the order of the creation of man and women and man’s naming of the creatures and his wife indicates his headship or leadership in the marriage.   This is not to be rejected or seen as ugly or misogynistic  in any  way.    Matthew Henry captured the tenderness and beauty of the Lord God creating woman from Adam and as the Father of the bride presenting her to him.  “The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”  The husband and wife together with him leading and her helping make it their aim to realize the Creator’s purpose for their one flesh covenant bond of marriage.  

The other connected purpose, which is even more fundamental to Christian marriage, is that the husband is to lead his wife as they together aim to manifest more clearly the portrait of Christ and His church.  The wife’s calling is to submit to her own husband willingly as the church submits to Christ and the husband’s calling is to love his wife as Chrsit loves the church.  It is clear in the relationship of the church to Christ who is the head/leader and this is to be replicated in the Christian marriage.  Christ is the head of his church and the church submits to Him.  Christian marriage is a portrait always in the making.  The husband and his wife do this together.  The husband does this as he loves his wife sacrificially.  The wife does this as she submits to his leadership from a heart of loving respect for him.  She is called to follow him, not to take the lead or resist his leadership.  He is called to lead her in love and not to control or dominate her.   When together they create such harmony, their marriage becomes a more brilliant portrait of the Gospel - of Christ’s relationship to his church and his church’s relationship to him.   I liken this to a couple of dancers who engage in a beautiful choreographed waltz.  For the waltz to be danced well both are necessary.   There is no such thing as a one person waltz.   Two are absolutely necessary for the waltz to be executed with finesse and artistry.   Yet it is the man who leads and the woman who follows.  If the man did not lead or led poorly the waltz would be a mess but it would also be a mess if the woman did not follow.   There is no way a waltz could be danced with any beauty if both wanted to lead or if both wanted to follow.   

Yet, someone might ask, “what would prevent the woman from leading in the waltz?”  There are no intellectual, anatomical or biological deficiencies that would hinder her from taking the lead.  If she were teaching her daughter or her son or for that matter even her husband, who never danced before, she could easily do so.  I fully agree!  However, the analogy of the waltz reflects the content of the text that teaches that Christian marriage is a portrait of Christ and the church.  So, it is God’s will that in marriage the husband is the head of his wife and is to take the lead and the wife is respectfully to submit to his leadership and follow.  So, the husband is to grasp the call to care for and respond to his wife as Christ cares for and responds to his church.  Likewise the wife is to grasp the call to honor and respond to her husband as the church honors and responds to Christ.   This is the marital waltz that the Lord God established in the beginning.   

The husband’s leading is to be expressed through love for his wife who is his equal as one who bears God’s image and is a fellow heir with him in the grace of life (1 Pet. 3:7).  Nevertheless she is different from him too and he is different from her and this also is by God’s design.   In this day when the biological differences between male and female are ridiculed, denied and efforts made to eradicate this created binary,  as Christians, we need to resist this philosophical and cultural sophistry.   When a man and a woman marry they bring those differences with them into the marriage and this is not an accident of nature.  Without those differences there would be no marriage.   As our Lord Jesus declared, referencing the Genesis creation account, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matt. 19:4 ESV).   Christian marriage in part is built on and exists due to the sexual differences between the husband and the wife.   Only a husband and wife can form a one flesh covenant union.  

However, the husband’s authority as the head of his wife is not absolute.  It is assigned to him by the Lord God and he will answer one day for how he stewarded it.  He is to express that authority in love for his wife.  This love is for her as a woman and one who shares God’s image with him.  This love is not to be patronizing or in any way belittling or condescending.  As Peter teaches he is to live with her in an understanding way showing her honor as the  weaker vessel (1 Pet. 3:7).  The marriage bond of being one flesh means that he is to love her as being that close to him, as being his own flesh.  “In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.”   

He is a fool who fails to understand, appreciate, affirm, depend upon, rejoice over and celebrate the gifts, personality and good that his wife brings to him and to their marriage.  He is worse than a fool who would neglect or abuse his wife.  It is the love, the nourishing, the cherishing that Christ in grace shows us, His church, that motivates us to love him, honor him and follow him.   In this sense Christ makes it compelling for us to do so.  His yoke is indeed easy and His burden is indeed light (Matt. 11:28-30).   As Christ leads us by grace and love that secured our redemption and as he intercedes for us before the Father’s throne and has poured out his love for us in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we delight in following Him and are not ashamed to be known as His people.  In an analogical way it is the love of the husband, which models Christ’s love for the church, that makes his leading of his wife an easy  yoke and a light burden for her.   Together with him leading and her following they reflect in ever more stunning hues the portrait of Christ and His church.  What this looks like from marriage to marriage will vary and even to some degree be shaped by culture but the theological principles must be embraced.   This is, in my humble assessment, what the text of Ephesians 5:21-33 teaches us and what we should affirm and humbly, with Christ’s help, seek to follow in our marriages.  

 * The editorial committee of United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament and of Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece 28th Revised Edition went with those ancient manuscripts with the shorter reading.  There are other ancient witnesses that do contain the verb submit in the imperative mood in verse 22.  In Bruce M. Metzger’s “A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament” he comments on the reason the committee went with the shorter reading that did not include the word “submit.”  He writes, “On the one hand, several early witnesses…begin the new sentence (verse 22) without a main verb, thus requiring that the force of the preceding ὑποτασσόμενοι (the present middle participle of the verb submit) be carried over.” page 608.   So, the editorial committee, though going with the shorter reading, understood that the idea of submission by wives is carried over into verse 22.   This is the reason both the ESV and the NET Bible include the word submit in their translations. 

+Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature    page542.